Tag Archives: national review

In November 2014, this intrepid blogger trooped down to the DC Court of Appeals to watch the Mann v. National Review oral argument. In my post, I wrote that the panel was likely to conclude that the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss was immediately appealable (having already held, in Burke v. Doe I, that the denial of a special motion to quash under the DC anti-SLAPP statute was immediately appealable), and that the tougher question would be how to apply the “likely to succeed” standard at the motion stage.

When we last wrote about Michael Mann’s libel suit against National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and two individual defendants, the DC Superior Court had denied anti-SLAPP motions filed by all defendants. Since that date, there have been several notable developments in the case, including an appeal to the DC Court of Appeals, a return to the DC Superior Court, and another upcoming appeal. Here is what you might have missed:

In the libel squabble between Michael Mann and National Review, Mann has filed his response to the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion, and they, in turn, have filed their reply brief. Now that the briefing is complete, it is clear that there are several issues in serious dispute between the parties. First, they disagree on the burden imposed upon Mann to avoid dismissal. The statute provides that, if the moving party satisfies the statute’s elements, the suit must be dismissed unless the non-moving party can show that it is “likely” to succeed on the merits.

It has been two years since the District of Columbia’s anti-SLAPP statute first became effective. To date, anti-SLAPP motions have been granted in a Superior Court case (Lehan v. Fox), denied in a Superior Court case (Newmyer v. Huntington), granted in a federal court case (Farah v. Esquire), and denied in two federal court cases (Sherrod v. Breitbart and 3M v. Boulter). Anti-SLAPP motions have also been made in five other Superior Court cases: Snyder v. City Paper (resolved when the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the suit); Dean v. NBC Universal (dismissed as a sanction for the plaintiff’s refusal to pay the …

As I predicted last month, Michael Mann’s suit against the National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute and two of their contributors, has resulted in an anti-SLAPP motion filed by the defendants, along with a companion Rule 12(b)(6) motion.

After a period of relative quiet, there has been a flurry of activity in the District of Columbia federal and state courts in cases involving the DC anti-SLAPP statute. Here’s a summary of where the various cases stand: • Sherrod v. Breitbart: The case drawing the most attention is the pending appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Sherrod v. Breitbart. There, the defendants/appellants have filed their opening brief; the District of Columbia has filed an amicus brief; Public Citizen and the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital have filed …

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